Changing the Conversation About Overhead

Laura Ferreri, a financial consultant for nonprofits, said in a lecture that it is completely unreasonable that nonprofits are ridiculed when they allocate more than 10% to overhead when business give well over 20% to overhead.

Ferreri was pointing out the double standard between a business that is solely based on profit making and a model that was based on social good—with no interest in making a profit.

Susan G. Komen, a nonprofit working to end breast cancer, faced public scrutiny when word spread that they were paying their CEO more than $600,000. However, when you do the math, that salary is less than 4% of their entire revenue.

The Apple CEO makes about 9 million. Nobody says anything about that.

A writer from The Street wrote in an article, “When donating to a nonprofit, you like to think that most of your money is going towards its stated goal, and that the nonprofit spends most of its money towards making the world a better place.”

Ferreri was right, this logic is completely irrational. Just because a person chooses a career to alleviate poverty or help illiterate children, they should have barely enough income to survive? Whereas someone who chooses to make profits off of selling the newest and coolest, possibly unnecessary, technology to the most elite of the 1^st world should earn an income to throw parties the price of some college students’ tuitions.

The conversation about overhead needs to change. People need to acknowledge that just because a not-for-profit is not supposed to be using donation dollars for salaries—it’s necessary for the people who run the organization and implement change to survive. 

Ferreri was so upset when she shared this piece of information, she had to sit back and stop talking to keep herself from rambling in anger. Her reaction to this issue is how we should all be reacting.

Poll Finds Californians True Feelings on Race & Education

USC Dornsife and the LA Times have collaborated in conducting statewide polls for years. They cover subjects from immigration and politics to trend topics such as asking people if they’ve read a book in the past month.

In their most recent survey of more than 1,500 Californians, they found out peoples’ true feelings regarding race relations between one another as well as law enforcement and how they feel about education tenure.

The survey found that most Californians feel race relations are better in California than in the rest of the United States. They particularly feel positive about the way different races interact within their own smaller communities. Dan Schnur, Director of the Jesse M. Unruh Institute of Politics at USC, said that this largely reflects the comfort people feel with other races when they actually get to know them on a personal level.

With the wide diversity in California, people are exposed to a multitude of ethnicities. The fact that this poll reflects that people feel positive about the diversity in their neighborhoods and in California is encouraging for the long-lasting societal stride towards equality.

The survey also found that in particular, young Californians, ages 18-29, are most optimistic about race relations in general. This reflects the newer generations adaptations to diversity and ultimately, growth towards acceptance of one another despite color.

The poll went deeper into race relations, asking questions on how people felt about law enforcement interaction with different races. It found that the number of Californians that think police are tougher on African Americans has increased by 10% in the past few months. This has an extremely interesting correlation with the heavy media attention on alleged police brutality regarding race. In the past 5 months, society has been exposed to a multitude of police-involved killings regarding African Americans all over the country and there has been a strong movement of protests against it. Evidently, this has had a large influence on how people all over the United States are moved to feel a certain way towards the issue of law enforcement racism.

In addition to race, the survey also asked questions regarding education--specifically tenure, which is seniority based layoffs of public school teachers.

Thirty-eight percent of Californians say they believe teachers should not be granted tenure. Thirty-five percent said tenure should only be granted for teachers who have been working for 4-10 years. That's nearly 70% that don't support current teacher tenure that grants teachers job security after one year.

Job security is a generally a positive thing, but this tenure plan also makes it more difficult to fire poor-performing teachers. On the heels of last June’s Vergarav. California ruling that found teacher layoffs based on seniority to be unconstitutional, the poll shows that Californians also seem to reject the notion that teachers should be laid off based on seniority.

I understand this issue on a more personal level. My mom was the secretary at my elementary school and remained there until my junior year of college. She went to school to be a teacher when I was a child, but there were never any job openings in the districts near our home. While she was secretary, they were laying of teachers with up to 12-years experience. The layoffs started with the newest teachers and each year sent pink slips to teachers with the least experience—all the way up to 12 years. After receiving her teaching credentials, my mom was very discouraged because there was no way she would be hired when my own kindergarten teacher was getting fired as I was graduating high school.

The survey found that people recognize this as a broken system for education. When asked how California schools should lay off teachers when necessary, 53% said teachers who receive poor marks in their classroom observations should be the first to go.

Twenty-six percent said teachers whose students didn’t make enough progress on standardized tests throughout the year should be laid off first. As a fairly recent student in the public school system, I think this is an awful idea because students don’t take standardized tests seriously. No one wants to take them and they end up bubbling answers in randomly due to the fact that score won't reflect on their report cards. Students don’t necessarily understand that their test scores determine their schools’ API score and in turn how neighborhoods and colleges will look at that school in terms of academic performance. The other side of this is the level of motivation for children in poverty stricken neighborhoods with high crime or gang rates. These kids may not care enough to score well on standardized tests—is it really logical for the teachers that dedicate their careers to helping children in these neighborhoods be fired for this?

The answer in regards to how layoffs should be handled is not a definite one. As for California overall, only 8% felt layoffs should first target the teacher with the least seniority or classroom experience which makes it clear that tenure is not the way to go.

Overall, polls like this are extremely beneficial to everyone as a society. The first step to change is acknowledging. 

Germanwings Crash Calls For Change In Mental Health Protocols For Airline Pilots

“I can assure you, the kid had problems. I’ve never seen anything like it in 30 years as a teacher.” This line is from the English subtitles of an Argentinean fictional short film by Damián Szifrón’s called Relatos salvajes. The teacher is speaking of a man named Gabriel Pasternak, a mentally unstable pilot who has arranged for every person that has ever wronged him to be on the same plane. In less than a 10-minute scene, Pasternak crashes the plane, killing everyone he seeks revenge on.

This short film was released in theaters at a very hypersensitive time—just days after a supposed mentally ill Germanwings pilot crashed a plane of 149 people into the French Alps, leaving no survivors. People across the world were outraged that a pilot of a public airline would intentionally kill innocent people while on the job. The tragic crash implores that the mental health of aircraft pilots needs to be handled differently.

Being 30,000 feet in the air at the discretion of two pilots is a matter that requires trust. As ordinary people that fly on commercial flights, we need to know that we are in safe hands. That comes with trust in our pilots and trust overall in the airline.

According to the Federal Aviation Administration, medical certificates are only required for pilots who want to fly solo. To get this certificate, pilots have to be examined by FAA approved examiners and the exam includes mental health standards. 

However, for Airline Transport Pilots, the pilots that fly the planes that we travel on, the current medical protocols differ by airline. 

Kyle Bailey, President of Bailey Consulting International, said that in the United States, pilots undergo a “first class medical exam” every six months. The exam encompasses a full physical including blood samples, drug tests, and checking heart rate. However, there is no psychological testing in the majority of routines. Bailey said there may be a brief psychological exam upon hiring, depending on the airline, but none following.

The airline that employed the German pilot, Andreas Lubitz, revealed that he had previously suffered from “deep depression”. An investigation disclosed that Lubitz saw a professional psychiatrist and that his psychiatrist had given him a note instructing him not to fly on the day of the crash. The note was found ripped up in his apartment and understandably so. If he was deemed too ill to fly, then he may have very likely been too ill to hold the responsibility of that note.

Instead, the responsibility should have been on the airline as the employer. There needs to be a system in place that would allow professional therapists or psychiatrists the right to reach out to employers when things become this serious with patients.

By no means, do we want our society to make the issue of mental illness any more negative than it already has. Current laws protect citizens from work place discrimination by allowing them to keep medical issues, such as mental health, private. This is necessary for equal employment opportunities, however, when issues are as grave as a person being a threat to society—such as this plane crash, an employer should be notified. This doesn’t mean that the particular unstable person should be fired and forced into a financial hardship. Instead, we as a society should take care of them through healthcare disability until they are better because getting better is possible.

The fact of the matter is mental illness is more common than society likes to admit. History of “deep depression” is not a remote condition to this one man or to the sole career of pilots, but instead to every size, shape, and color of human in any and every career. It is unfortunate that lives had to be lost in order for this issue to be brought into the limelight, but good can come from this tragedy.

In the Relatos salvajes short film, the mentally unstable pilot killed every one that had wronged him. In the Germanwings reality, the mentally unstable pilot took innocent lives. When reality becomes worse than fiction films, it’s time for change.